Page 70 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
I’d have a home here…and she’d have Benedict. Granted, a Benedict who didn’t want her, but she’d take a resentful Benedict as a protector rather than an abusive, lecherous duke for a husband.
Cressida began her search at the main suites. The chambers for Benedict’s paramours were done with the same quality, elegance, and money had the woman been his actual wife.
Unlike The Devil’s Den, which had been garishly golden and blood-stained red throughout, Benedict’s color palette for his mistress’s abode was all elegant pale ivories and soft creams.
There were no salacious paintings and murals and mirrors affixed upon every wall to put people on display as had been the case at Lord Dynevor’s. Benedict’s townhouse containedpastoral scenes and floral arrangements the queen herself would have approved of.
Cressida visited every room, and then every parlor and the drawing rooms. She left no space unturned, no carpet uncharted, and as she went, she marveled at the vast wealth possessed by the Earl of Wakefield.
How casually he’d spoken of this being a secondary property. Why, the furnishings in just one quarter of her bedchambers alone would be enough to sustain Cressida and Trudy for the next two and a half years, and possibly then some.
For a shameful minute, she considered stealing from Benedict. She thought about availing herself of some of the most luxurious pieces, worth the highest value, and disappearing into the night, vanishing with Trudy, where they could live alone, untouched, and unafraid forever.
It’d be so easy. It’d be so…so…wrong.
Standing outside the kitchens, she closed her eyes.
Dammit, it was times such as these that she resented and hated that she didn’t have just a smidge of her brother’s evil in her. Maybe if she did, she’d be able to properly look after herself and her nursemaid.
“Is there something you need, miss?”
That question brought her eyes flying open.
A rosy-cheeked, pretty parlor maid, arms filled with linens, smiled back.
It was a cheer-filled smile that required its recipient to respond in kind, and Cressida found herself doing just that. “No. Thank you for asking. I thought I’d visit the kitchens.”
The girl nearly lost her hold on the burden in her arms.
Cressida rushed to help, but the kindly servant moved the lawn articles close to prevent her from handling them.
“Gor, whyever would you do that, miss? I’ll be happy to bring you a tray. Or, if you’d prefer, the dining room or the breakfast table?”
Cressida’s mind spun under all those many options for where to sit and eat. All this when she had but one room to choose from.
“I’m just as able to fetch my own,” Cressida gently declined.
The maid leaned in and whispered, “You’d be the first.”
The two women shared a commiserative smile as two social equals, which they, in fact, were, no matter that the maid thought she existed in Lord Wakefield’s household to serve Cressida.
Cressida expected to be served by no one. “I am Cressida. What is your name?”
Unlike the other maid, the dimple-cheeked, fairy-like woman tendered her name. “Nancy, miss. The name is Nancy. Should I fetch Cook so you can discuss the menu?”
“The menu?” Cressida repeated, and then promptly burst out laughing.
The maid gave her an odd look, one that was obviously well-deserved.
“I certainly will not be requiring a menu, Nancy,” she assured. “I’ll be more than happy to dine with the staff. I’ll eat whatever meal is prepared for the servants.
Had Cressida announced she’d bestow gold upon Wakefield’s entire staff, the maid couldn’t have been more awestricken. “Gor, miss,” Nancy breathed. “I’ve been employed here for some years now, and there have been lots of ladies who’ve come through here, and not a single one is like you.”
The smile froze on Cressida’s face. Nancy had just offered a reminder of all the women Benedict chose. They’d been favored and revered, and he’d wanted to bring them here. Unlike Cressida, whom he’d erased from his memory and was noweager to erase from his life, and she would, as soon as it was determined there wasn’t a babe anchoring him to his unwanted lover.
“I’m finding I like you the best,” Nancy whispered, a gentle understanding that Cressida couldn’t be more miserable at the thoughts of the earl’s last lovers.
“You’d be the first,” Cressida said wryly.
